Many businesses have started using cloud telephony software for enhanced communication with customers. It not only improves business communication but also offers a great customer experience which is one of the biggest competitive advantages.
As we live in a digital world now, customers interact with businesses through many channels. It becomes difficult for businesses to provide support to each customer through different channels. Yet, by using cloud telephony software, businesses can no longer find it difficult to support customers.
Cloud call center software isa type of call center software thatcan be beneficial to your business. It can handle all your business operations with ease. It can help you track, forward, record calls, etc.
So what is call center software? What are the different kinds of call center software?
How can your business benefit from using call center software? What are the top 10 things to look at while choosing the right call center software? This blog provides you with answers to all these questions and more.
- What exactly is Call Center Software?
- What is Cloud Telephony Software?
- What are the Types of Call Center Software?
- Benefits of Call Center Software
- Benefits of Cloud-Based and Hosted Call Center Software
- Top 9 Factors to Consider When Choosing Cloud Telephony Software
- Top 6 Best Call Center Services – 2022 Review
- Conclusion
What exactly is Call Center Software?
Call center software is a technology used by call centers to help businesses handle incoming and outgoing calls. It is a system that enables businesses to manage many communication channels like SMS, phone, live chat, email, and social media. It accomplishes tasks like call routing, gathering caller data, transferring calls to agents, etc.
Call center software is even more valuable when used with a CRM platform. Such a system known as call center CRM software gives you a360-degree view of all the customer support interactions.
What is Cloud Telephony Software?
Cloud telephony software is a technology that lets you manage your entire call center communications in the cloud. It does not need any physical infrastructure. Moreover, you can get started with your cloud-based call center in a few minutes.
It is a comprehensive call management solution. This means that it provides you access to call recording, call forwarding, call routing, and other important calling features.
What are the Types of Call Center Software?
The type of call center software used can have either a positive or a negative impact on your business. The right kind of call center software would boost your business productivity and efficiency as soon as it has been implemented. Call center software is available in two main types;
Hosted call center software/On-Premise Call Center Software
On-premise call center software is a technology that is located at the premises of your business. This type of call center software solution along with the hardware and other infrastructure is established at your office. Your IT staff and service provider would maintain this software.
The key advantage of this software is your ability to preserve integrated systems and data. But, it has a few drawbacks that they
- Are costly i.e. hardware, software, licensing and infrastructure need upfront investments
- Provide very restricted options for integrations
- Need to be upgraded every time with a new version of the software
- Do not provide the same amount of security, privacy, and uptime as compared with the other types of call center software
Hosted on cloud/Cloud-Based Call Center Software
Cloud-based call center software is a technology that is hosted online and is accessible through an app. Al the data in this type of software is stored in the cloud that can be accessed by users.
The key advantage of this software is that it
- Is much less costly than on-premise call center software,
- Does not need hardware or infrastructure to be installed, and
- Does not need a dedicated staff to track or maintain the software.
This software also requires minimal upfront investment and can be deployed fast. Moreover, it can be integrated with other software. They also provide better security and privacy than on-premise call center software.
Inbound Call Center Software
Inbound call center software is a type of cloud-based call center software. It is a technology that allows your business to manage inbound calls (incoming calls). It enables efficient call routing to the right agents. It offers agents an easy UI dashboard that can generate call insights.
Outbound Call Center Software
Another type of cloud-based call center software, this technology allows your business to manage outbound calls (outgoing calls). It can be used to automate the dialing process. This means agents no longer have to manually dial. Additionally, it assists marketing and sales teams in optimizing outreach campaigns to maximize results.
Benefits of Call Center Software
Even though every business is different, the basic need for customer service and sales is common. To help them function better, call center software has been developed.
Call center software has many benefits to offer to your business. This is the reason it is gaining popularity with each passing day. Its many intelligent features replace the need for a receptionist/operator and lessen the burden of agents’ workload.
Below is the list of the many benefits offered by call center software.
Enhances Customer Service Management
A call center solution is the first line of contact point for your business. Customers need a great experience. They need quick and fast answers to their queries. But with a large volume of customers, it is difficult to attend to each customer’s query.
Call center software can be helpful in such a situation. It allows you to attend to a large number of customers professionally without any delay. It helps you in the management of queries, identifying urgent calls, setting appointments, ticket support, etc.
It is also available 24by7. This means that customer service is delivered irrespective of the time they (customers) reach out to your business. Thus it can be said that call center software is efficient and productive.
Cost and Time Efficient
It can be costly to establish an entire customer service department. This cost increases as your business grows. It is also time taking and costly to recruit and hire call center agents. You can, yet, save both time and money by using call center software.
Using a single tool, you can perform all the basic tasks, such as receiving, tracking, and managing calls. Besides, it comes with functionality that measures call metrics, routes calls to particular departments, and much more. This will allow your organization to save money and time.
A Higher Conversion Rate, Increases Sales Deals and Customer Support
You can use call center software as a powerful marketing tool for your company. Getting a timely response to a potential client’s inquiry is a huge part of the conversion process. It is quite common for sales representatives to miss or delay responding to a customer. Yet, call center software will never do so.
It can also assist with making outbound calls for your organization, following up with clients, and much more. Call center software is, thus, able to increase the chances of turning a prospect into a customer by a great deal.
Have you read our latest blog on ten powerful techniques for B2B lead generation and tracking yet? If you haven’t read it here!
Enhanced Business Image and Customer Satisfaction
Have you ever considered how customer service calls can impact your business’s image? A customer who can get their queries resolved will perceive the business to be a professional one.
Another way to state it is that a professional customer service call reflects the seriousness of your business. Call center software can deliver a professional response automatically.
It is designed to provide superior customer service. Moreover, call center software allows a customer to reach an agent and get his/her issue resolved quickly.
Both of these play a critical role in determining customer service excellence. This proves that a prompt response is the most crucial factor in achieving customer satisfaction.
Also, statistics have shown that over 40 percent of customers prefer professional help in solving their issues. It indicates that call center agents play a critical role in improving customer satisfaction.
Determines the Urgency of a Call
To develop customer loyalty and improve customer experience, a business must prioritize calls. Fortunately, call center software allows you to determine the urgency of calls immediately.
By using it, you can determine which calls should be prioritized first. As a result, agents can respond immediately to those with urgent needs.
Once you have determined which calls are most important, you will no longer have to worry about determining urgency. With call center software, you will have access to your clients’ list at your fingertips. As a result, the software ensures that all other calls are in the queue. In this way, important calls are not lost.
Secures your Network more Effectively
Data about customers is a precious resource for every business. Information about customers, such as their purchasing history and product preferences, is included. Maintaining your clients’ information can be difficult, particularly if you do not have a backup system or security system.
Call center software is often equipped with features such as instant cloud backup. As soon as the software receives a customer call, the information is secured on the system. You do not need to be concerned about losing client information that can help further improvement of your business.
Flexibility
Another biggest benefit offered by call center software is that they are very flexible. The best call center solutions offer many plans that suit the needs of small, medium, and large companies.
It will also have the ability to add more features as the business develops. This will help you save money by only paying for the features you use.
Benefits of Cloud-Based and Hosted Call Center Software
Cloud-based and hosted call center software are two different types of call center software. Businesses often find it confusing to decide between cloud-based and hosted call center software.
Both of these software are having benefits in their way. Here we have listed down the key benefits offered by each of them.
| Benefits of Cloud-Based Call Center Software | Benefits of Hosted Call Center Software |
| Less costly and Improved ROI | You only need to pay for the equipment and systems needed |
| Enhances customer experiences | Gives you peace of mind knowing your confidential data is stored in-house safely and securely |
| Can be easily deployed | Greatest control over functions |
| Empowers employees | Fewer concerns about reliability |
| Help establish a fully-featured, state-of-the-art multichannel call center | |
| Improves agent efficiency | |
| Is flexible | |
| Provides data security and easy recovery |
Top 9 Factors to Consider When Choosing Cloud Telephony Software
To select the right cloud telephony software, you must understand your customers, your processes, and your technology. Each of these is an important indicator of the type of software you should use.
For example, your business needs to depend on the type of customers (regional, national, or international). It also depends on the way employees work (remote or in-house). Furthermore, while choosing the right software for sustainable growth, you need to understand what processes need improvement.
So here is a list of the top 10 factors to consider when choosing cloud telephony software.
Omnichannel Support
Customers can interact with brands through their social media accounts just as brands can discover them on many social media platforms. To provide superior customer service and support, most leading brands are providing digital customer service through various channels.
Today, customer convenience is paramount. Brand representatives go to great lengths to ensure that customers/prospects can reach them via their preferred channel.
Thus, the software you select for your call center must provide you with omnichannel support. Office24by7 is a good example of omnichannel cloud telephony software. It will enable your customers to contact you through many channels such as calls, email, and social media without any difficulty.
It allows you to keep track of all customer inquiries and concerns in one location. As a result, your agents will be able to assist your customers/leads more quickly. It will also ensure that they are heard. Your brand image will thus be enhanced as well as consumer loyalty.
Intelligent Automation
Automation can simplify operations to a great extent, reduce workload and improve accuracy. Recurring customer queries can be delegated to the proper self-service channels, allowing companies to save time on handling them.
Much new-age cloud telephony software, such as office24by7, features virtual assistants that take your calls around the clock. This type of tool relieves you of a large part of the customer interaction burden while empowering callers to help themselves.
By automating tasks, you will be able to serve more people with fewer resources. You will also be able to provide more organized services and assistance. Modern cloud telephony software can also automate workflows.
It can configure rules for agent assignment, record calls, and analyze them to improve customer service. It can also assist you with setting up actions in a variety of scenarios. This enables you to offer the best support to your clients.
Optimizing the Management of your Workforce
Call centers are frequently responsible for managing a large workforce and constantly evaluating their performance, skills, and quality. This requires significant capital investments and can adversely impact service quality.
Your agents can be trained better, resolution quality can be improved, and productivity can be increased with workforce optimization. Furthermore, having an engaged and empowered workforce can result in significant changes in their attitudes. This will have a positive effect on your customers.
For instance, office24by7 provides a dashboard from which you can monitor remote and on-premise agents. The system also allows you to assign dedicated agents to clients, improving convenience and efficiency.
Cloud telephony software can also enable you to optimize your workforce. This is made possible through features such as call routing, call recording, and performance tracking. These features help you gain a more in-depth understanding of what your customers want.
It will also help you understand how your agents can best assist them. These insights can also be used to fill gaps in an agent’s performance and to provide clients with peerless omnichannel service.
Agent Management
Any call center relies on its agents for its success, and well-trained agents are a valuable asset. To manage and tarck their agents and processes, call center managers need the right monitoring tools. The agent schedules can be optimized based on the process needs. This will allow them to reduce long hold times and minimize downtimes.
It is possible to help agent management by utilizing features such as
- Call whispering,
- Call barging,
- Call snooping,
- Remote assistance,
- Performance tracking,
- Feedback analysis, etc.
Calls recorded during inbound or outbound calls may be used to monitor or train agents. Also while choosing cloud telephony software; it should have features like agent CTI, call transfer, call conference, skill-based call routing, etc.
Real-Time Analytics & Insights
The call center software you select should also enable you to track the results of your efforts. Moreover, it must guide you forward and assist you in identifying efficiency problems within your processes.
Cloud telephony software can provide you with more accountability and transparency about the changes that are necessary within your call center. It will be able to provide you with guidance as to what needs to be improved.
Reports and dashboards (within cloud telephony software) generated through analytics enable you to;
- Track the health of your business in real-time,
- Prepare for emergencies, and
- Honor service level agreements.
Through such insights, you can also identify hidden patterns in consumer behavior and predict their preferences. By creating a predictive customer support model, they can support the decisions critical to your business.
Intelligent Call Routing
Often, inbound call centers are faced with high volumes of call or chat traffic, especially during peak hours. This can be challenging for smaller companies with less support staff.
Because of this, callers are forced to wait in long queues. Agents are also under pressure to resolve calls as quickly as possible. Many leading cloud telephony software offers automatic call distribution (ACD). ACD allows call routing to available agents or departments based on their expertise and availability.
An omnichannel routing feature within the cloud telephony software is also very useful. In that, it distributes incoming calls by the type of inquiry.
It also allows you to reduce call volumes while increasing the efficiency of the call resolution process. It is possible to group your agents based on their departments or expertise (e.g., billing, technical support, sales, etc.).
The call routing feature can also assign calls to the appropriate representatives based on the customer’s response, feedback, and call history.
All in One Solution
It is important to pick a call center solution that can meet all of your business needs daily. A cloud telephony software should have features such as call recording, interactive voice response, call monitoring, file sharing, etc.
Campaign and List Management
It is not unusual for call centers to handle many campaigns simultaneously. They also have to handle numerous call lists for follow-up calls. Each of these campaigns has a particular goal or objective that requires separate monitoring.
A marketing campaign’s success is determined by the type of response and conversion it receives. With cloud telephony software such as office24by7, you can manage lists and campaigns easily.
Integrations
Companies use a variety of technologies to meet their objectives, assist their customers, engage them and collect feedback. Thus, it is essential that you select your cloud telephony software in such a way that information is gathered from many sources.
Additionally, it should enhance cross-team workflow as well as help the smooth transfer of customer information.
With cloud telephony software, you can automate many processes. You can also integrate a call center tool with your existing technology stack.
For example, CRM software can be integrated. This will allow your agents to access data from your CRM tool instantly. This means they can gain a deeper understanding of a customer’s journey based on their interactions and previous sales history. By doing so, they can provide their customers with a more customized experience without having to switch between many applications. Moreover, the contact management feature within CRM allows you to assign, reassign and transfer leads.
Read our latest post on the top 15 reasons why small businesses should switch to cloud telephony here now.
Top 6 Best International Call Center Services – 2022 Review
The best call center software will allow your business to handle all kinds of omnichannel communication channels. It should be designed in such a way that it can help your call center flourish with sales and customer service.
It should assist in daily tasks by giving immediate access to information. It should also improve agent efficiency as well as customer experience.
Features such as IVR, CTI (computer telephony integration), ACD, and more must be included in it. Here is a list of the top six best international call center software services in 2022.
Office24by7
Call center software from office24by7 is a call center solution with third-party integrations. It allows you to interact with customers over incoming and outgoing calls at scale.
It can improve contact and enhance customer experience, drive productivity up, and handle more calls with lesser resources. Office24by7 call center software is an ideal solution irrespective of your call center being inbound, outbound, or blended.
Five9
Five9’s call center software is an intelligent cloud contact center. It lets you reconsider customer experience and accomplish substantial business results. It can increase customer satisfaction, empower your digital & human workforce, and increase business dexterity.
It helps customers to be engaged in their channel of choice. It also helps modernize your business operations with the power of automation, AI, and the cloud.
Avaya
Call center software from Avaya makes it workable for you to associate video, voice, messaging, chat, and more. It allows you to provide easy experiences for your customers and staff at every point of contact. It ushers in resources, teams, and insights together to intensify your call center performance.
Nextiva
Nextiva’s call center software makes stellar customer service look easy. It is intelligent cloud-based call center software.
With Nextiva, fragmented customer communication comes together with omnichannel support across voice, email, SMS, web chat, video, and social media.
It allows skills-based call routing. Agent experience is simplified by using its single interface. You also get unified reporting across all the channels.
Ring Central
Call center software from Ring Central offers a customer engagement platform with greater flexibility and reliability. It is an omnichannel solution that allows your customers to contact the right agents. It helps you build customer relationships and maximize agent performance.
Aircall
Aircall’s call center software is a solution that can transform customers’ experiences. It can set up your call center in minutes.
It can simplify call center setup so your support and sales teams can get up to speed sooner. You can invite your agents, organize your workflows, and can work remotely anywhere.
Conclusion
Choosing the right cloud telephony software for your business is difficult. This is because the options for affordable solutions are limited. There is also a vast difference in the quality of features offered. Hence, it is quite challenging to find the right mix of usability, cost-effectiveness, and features.
Also, the cloud telephony software so chosen should be reliable and flexible. This means that it should not only improve customer relationships but also add value to your business. It should create a lasting impression. Thus, cloud telephony software should be able to offer omnichannel support and help your business grow.
Cloud telephony software like office24by7 offers impeccable technology with a simple interface at a very cheap price. Additionally being a SaaS-based technology, it enables you to work remotely and help manage your call center operations effectively. Contact us at +91 7097171717 or drop an email at sales@office24by7.com today.
